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1 Circuit, installation view at Cynthia Reeves Gallery, New York, New York, 9 ft. 3 in. (2.8 m) in height, paper clay, charcoal crawl glaze, gypsum polymer
laminated to corn based resin and marine netting, 2010. 2 Circuit, installation view at Davidson Gallery, Seattle, Washington, 2010. 3 Detail of surface texture.
A system of Generosity: John GradeÕ s Circuit by Ben Waterman
We are left to wonder about what will occur; what will happen when
the 400 fragments of Circuit are hefted up a mountain in the Central
Cascades and arranged to weather for the next year, then brought back
to be reassembled and experienced. Will they be sunk into the sea 1000
feet below the surface? Unlike most sculpture of our time, the solidity
of John Grade’s new work Circuit is in its evolution, in expectation, the
possible, and the what if. It is without true place. In this way, form is
translated into an invitation of becoming, to a journey that is open, a
shared, never ending and generous experience.
Circuit, composed of five tons of paper clay, requiring more than 300
hours of firing time, and the help of 30 volunteers to complete, was created
at Pottery Northwest (www.potterynorthwest.org/Bridge-Grade.htm)
in Seattle, Washington, and was recently exhibited at Davidson Galleries
(www.davidsongalleries.com), also in Seattle, and Cynthia Reeves Gallery
(www.cynthia-reeves.com) in New York City. Grade was a visiting
artist at Pottery Northwest as part of the ongoing project, “Crossing
Over The Bridge,” which Director Wally Bivens describes as, “a situation
that introduces artists who don’t normally work with clay to [its]
potential, and introduces our studio to the way in which those artists
thought about their work in a larger context.” The guts of Grade’s
work and Bivens’ project is a resolve based on vulnerability; a trust that
through exposure to the unknown, an unknown richness will result.
Many of the practical decisions made in the creation of Circuit
reflect this open attitude toward potential. Grade first created drawings
of the work, but after experiencing the way clay warped as it dried and
handled while wet, the drawings were taken over by engagement and
the piece was altered. “What we ended up making has a greater degree
of irregularity than in the original concept,” he explains. “The originals
looked more like what I imagine the existent forms will look like after
they have changed in the alpine environment.”
Grade chose a basalt-black glaze, not only for its color but also because
it crawls heavily. The deep surface fissures allow the environment
to engage the sculpture and become, in turn, a participant, so that when
exhibited again, its journey will be apparent by design. The work will
continue to be open, part of the moment, constantly willing to reveal
where it has been, is now, and will go.
Circuit fits into an established but ever evolving system. Grade’s
previous works use displacement, duration, exposure, and extremes, as
60 march 2011 www.ceramicsmonthly.org
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well as various environments, to provide unique patinas to the sculpture.
When considering the works closely, it’s evident that surface is not simply
a finish, but rather, exposed integration, telling the very blunt story that
to become part of something, you must let go of something. The works
show us that exchange is not easily attained and has a price, especially
when it is an authentic offering versus an expressive device. What we do
uniquely gain from Circuit is in large part due to the material framework.
It’s the possibility of experiencing a more geologic sense of time, tied to
the conceptual and physical journey directed by Grade. Although the
gypsum polymer, laminated to corn-based resin and marine netting, that
backs the tiles will show the more immediate effects of time, the clay
and glaze will be altered in a much different way. The cadence of those
changes will be slower and the sense of possibility related to engagement
extended beyond perhaps even the lifetimes of several generations to
come. The strength of this gesture is in the extended interaction it affords.
The work becomes potentially monumental not because of scale
alone but because of the communicative gesture central to the medium.
The language of time, indispensable to Grade, finds another pitch in
this sculpture, and adds to the larger chorus that he has already gathered.
The story related to Circuit, and how it unfolds in the next few years
has been already established (with perhaps the most dramatic changes
yet to be seen). How it unfolds in the next several hundred years is yet
to be conceived, and that how is a powerful step, existing as a type of
potential expression that is yet to be fully explored.
The writer Harry Crews said: “The little that I have learned about
the world, and, more important, that I have learned about myself, has
been absurdly expensive. . . . The miracle of the world, the miracle
of a rebirth of the senses, the miracle of an accepting heart can only
be paid for with blood and bone. No other currency has ever been
acceptable.” Grade’s work seems to confirm this set of relationships.
There is simply no other way to accomplish the feeling that one gets
from it. When considering Circuit as an expression beyond its parts, we
see that it simply has to go through these endless becomings to create
an enlivening of the senses and to manifest as the type of provocation
that we all deeply crave.
the author Ben Waterman lives and works in Seattle,Washington. To
learn more about his work and writing, visit www.benwaterman.com.
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